


We are the guardian angels of the Earth!

by Ghelik



Series: The 100 Fics [33]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Children, Alternate Universe - Future, F/F, F/M, Family, Hope, Post-Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-09 13:32:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11105583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghelik/pseuds/Ghelik
Summary: Upon the Ring Bellamy and the rest of the Space gang still have hope





	1. Chapter 1

“Good morning, Clarke. It’s me, checking in.”

 

Bellamy doesn’t know why he keeps doing this every day, but, even though he knows it’s pointless, he can’t bring himself to stop.

 

“Today is Ivy’s sixth birthday. Murphy and Emori are planning a big party. Maybe that will lift the spirits a bit. Everyone’s been feeling slightly down lately.” He presses his lips together. “Just _that_ time of the year, I guess.”

 

Maybe Clarke’s listening at the other side and just unable to answer. Maybe this is what prayers were like to the Caretakers of the Tree. “Raven has been working on a wind-up toy for Ivy. A killer robot or something like that, she won’t tell me, because she says I can’t keep secrets.” He can’t get the smile off his face as he adds “She told Echo, though. Bloody traitor.” He laughs and closes his eyes for a moment, imagining Clarke smiling at him. It doesn’t hurt that much after so many years. “Murphy will probably freak when he sees it.” Bellamy chuckles. “He’s even more of a mother hen than I am.”

 

Silence. Bellamy looks out the big bay window. Space is dark, but earth glows. Over the years he’s been witness to its transformation: has seen how the swirling clouds dissipated to reveal a dry and scorched land, seen green sprouting and reconquering the world.

 

“Maybe this year Murphy and Monty will…” he’s interrupted by a high-pitched shrieking voice calling his name. A moment later Ivy comes running at full speed into the room.

 

“Thank you! Thank you!” she tackles him in a hug and then steps back to twirl around in her present. Like every year he’s brought it to her family’s quarters for her to open as soon as she wakes up. It’s a princess-like dress made out of a patchwork of threadbare shirts and pants.

Ivy's dirty-blond hair has been pulled back in three pigtails, which are probably Echo's doing, who delights in combing the girl’s hair in the most ridiculous ways possible.

 

“I guess you like it?” Bellamy smiles down at the girl, her grin heartwarming and contagious.

 

“I love it.” She twirls around, puffing the skirt around her pale golden skinned legs. Her slanted eyes fall on the radio in Bellamy’s hand. “Are you talking to Earth?”

 

“Yes.”

 

She lights up like a summer bonfire. “Can I say hello?”

 

Bellamy hands her the mouthpiece. It looks huge in her small pudgy hands. “We are the guardian angels of the Earth! Can you hear me?” She waits a few seconds dutifully. To be polite and let the people answer, even though she can’t hear them. “Today’s my birthday, and I am sending you a lot of sunshine to help you grow your crops and fatten your cows!” Ivy looks up for Bellamy’s approval. He nods his head. “I will give the speaker to Bellamy because he wants to talk to the guardian angel we left down there! I love you! Bye!” and she smacks a noisy kiss on the black plastic.

 

“You did it very well.” He tells her, and his heart melts a little when she beams at him with her gap-toothed smile.

 

Sometimes he thinks this little girl has saved all their lives. She’s always happy, always laughing and smiling and running up and down like a whirlwind.

 

Sometimes he’s so ashamed, he can’t even look at her.

 

Ivy squeals when Murphy sneaks up on her, picking her off the ground like she weighs nothing at all. She squirms in his grip, laughing and screaming when he tickles her. “Papa! Stop!”

 

“You never stop running away,” he answers, throwing her up in the air and catching her again. “So I won’t stop.”

 

Bellamy watches the young man with his big eyes and the shaggy hair streaked in early gray. Who would’ve thought John Murphy would be such a devoted father? Such a tireless protector?

 

“Have you seen Echo and Raven?” Bellamy asks, setting the radio down.

  
“Nope” he pops the p loudly against Ivy’s cheek, his stubble scratching her skin and making her push ineffectively at his head.

 

“Echo is in the farm,” Ivy says, her face going somber and the two men exchange a look. There’s no need for words, both know who is with Echo in the algae farm.

 

“Ok, mouse, time for us to go.”

 

Bellamy watches them leave with a sigh. “Time to start the day, Clarke. Talk to you later.”

 

***

 

Harper watches the celebration from the doorway, arms crossed across her belly and a far-off look on her face. She looks older than she should: deep creases around her mouth and bags under her eyes, her air a listless dirty-blond pulled back in a half-assed ponytail.

 

In the mess hall, Ivy blows the small candles on the protein cake that looks as appetizing as it sounds. Around her Raven, Echo, Bellamy, Emori and Murphy clap and cheer. Emori kisses the top of her head and pulls the candles off the cake to save them for next year. She cuts the overly-sweetened cake into eight nearly equal parts, handing them around the table of skaikru.

 

Like everyone else’s Emori’s skin has turned an unhealthy gray over the years away from the sun, the tattoo in crass contrast across her face. Like everyone else, she’s thinner and her eyes a bit older. Still in days like these, when she’s smiling so much there are crow feet around her eyes and her eyes sparkle, she looks as beautiful as she did under the sun, down on the ground.

 

Echo and Emori still wear parts of their traditional grounder wear: Echo always wears way too many layers and her armored gauntlets. Emori weaves small beads and metal pieces in her hair; still wears her headscarf and a knife strapped to her thigh. Most days, when she’s feeling happy and confident, she foregoes the glove on her left hand.

 

Raven takes a bite of her cake and grimaces. “God! Murphy! How much sweetener did you put in this thing?”

 

From his place to Ivy’s right Murphy pulls Emori into his lap, nuzzling into her hand when it finds its way into his hair. “Exactly the same amount I put in every year, Reyes.”

 

“And that’s the reason I eat your part every year.” Echo slides into the chair behind Raven to sneak her fork more comfortably into her plate and steal a massive piece of it. Stuffing it whole into her mouth to Ivy's delight.

 

Raven leans against her with a smile that warms Bellamy’s heart, and deadpans “My hero.”

 

Even though they’ve been seeing each other for years, Echo still manages to blush to the roots of her hair when Raven brushes a bit of faux whipped cream off her cheek.

 

Bellamy licks his fork. The cake must be drenched in as much artificial sweetener as humanly possible to hide the stale taste of the mashed protein bars. He isn’t sure what else Murphy uses to make the dough, and he’d rather keep living in the dark.

 

“Is it presents time?”

 

They all look up, surprised to see Monty has decided to make an appearance after all. It's the first time since Ivy was born. Emori stands up from Murphy’s lap and hands him a plate and a party hat made out of two hideous socks and an ungainly wool ball that bounces comically at the top, whenever he moves his head.

 

They’re all wearing similarly ghastly headpieces since ugly hats are part of Azgedan birthday-celebration tradition. Blowing candles was a Wastelander tradition. Back when skaikru lived on the Ark they couldn’t risk having flames anywhere, so skaikru is vaguely aware that there was a time when birthdays had been celebrated by blowing candles, but it wasn’t until Emori reintroduced the concept, that they got to witness it first hand. The singing out of tune is a skaikru tradition that has Echo and Emori cringing and everyone else laughing and trying to out-do each other in how out of tune they sing.

 

Exchanging presents was common to all their cultures.

 

Ivy squirms a bit when Monty comes closer with a small box in hand. “What do we say, Ivy?” Emori’s hand lands comfortingly on the girl's shoulder, and she manages a very quiet “Thank you” before tearing open the packet.

 

Monty hasn’t spent much time with the girl. When she was born, he was one of the most prominent advocates against keeping her and Murphy hasn’t forgiven him for it. Bellamy is pretty sure Murphy has never spoken about Monty in front of his daughter, but she must have noticed Monty’s uneasiness and, maybe not dislike – no one can be in the same room as Ivy and no fall in love with her immediately – but, perhaps, his resentment and his guilt.

 

“Do you want a piece of diabetes?” asks Raven, patting the chair next to her, empty now that Echo has migrated to her chair.

 

“It is not _that_ sweet.”

 

Ivy opens the box carefully while Monty sits. Inside she finds a handful of worn and taped-together comic books. “Papa, look!”

 

“Those are very good,” Murphy looks the titles over, a grin blooming on his face. “I read them myself when I was your age.”

 

“You could read at her age?”

 

“Bite me, Bellamy.”

 

“Now mine.” Raven pushes a brightly colored packet into Ivy’s eager hands.

  

Until Ivy came along, Bellamy would never have thought that Raven liked children. Then again, he would never have pegged Echo as a cuddler who likes to sleep in between him and Raven.

 

The windup toy ends up not being a killer robot but a unicorn that walks stiffly across the table when you turn the horn. Ivy jumps off her chair to smack a kiss on Raven’s cheek and show her new unicorn to everyone.

 

Much to Murphy’s utter horror, Echo gives Ivy a knife. A big sharp knife no six-year-old should be allowed to play with. “I’ll teach you how to fight.”

 

“The hell you will!”

 

The grounder woman raises a defiant eyebrow. “I am a great teacher.”

 

“She’s just a little girl.”

 

“She’s six.”

 

“I am a big girl!”

 

“It’s high time she learned how to defend herself.”

 

“I want to learn how to be a bad-ass warrior like aunt Echo!”

 

“I am going to wash your mouth with soap, young lady," warns Murphy sternly.

 

Ivy pouts and runs to hide behind Emori’s legs. “It’s my birthday. No washing today!”

 

Murphy looks at Emori. “Aren’t you supposed to be on my side here?”

 

“I think it’s a wonderful idea for Ivy to start learning how to fight.”

 

The young man turns to Bellamy, but he’s at a loss for words and finally just huffs indignantly and stuffs a big piece of cake in his mouth. By the door, Harper sighs and walks away.

 

***

 

“Do you think she looks like me?”

 

Bellamy looks up from the recently threaded needle. Monty’s leaning against the doorframe, looking at the charcoal pictures of the earth that decorate Bellamy’s workshop.

 

There was a time in which the Ark was too small for its population. Now they have over a hundred empty rooms, and everyone can have their space. For the first five years he slept here, stubbornly waiting for the moment, he’d be able to go back. Then the five years turned into six, and he started to understand his situation.

 

Echo and Raven took him in. It helped. It still does. Most days he’s pretty happy with his life.

 

But still, he comes here every day, filling the empty isolation cell with scavenged clothes and needles and threads and the cobbled-together sewing machine Raven and Monty made him for his birthday so many years ago.

 

He likes the room, unlike most of the other cells in the skybox, the isolation one has a window, and it has pictures to prevent him from completely forgetting the ground. Even though the memories are starting to feel more like a dream. Maybe that’s why he keeps calling Clarke. Perhaps it’s not hope but stubbornness.

 

“She does have your eyes.”

 

Monty nods his head, looks around like he’s lost and then wanders in. “She…,” he shakes his head. “I still think we shouldn’t have…”

 

“I know.”

 

“The longer we wait, the worse it will be.”

 

Bellamy puts the needle down, staring at Monty. The younger man rubs at the scars covering his hands. “It’s just not fair. She’s a sweet kid, and she doesn’t deserve to be… I should never have…”

 

Bellamy runs his tongue over his teeth. “We voted.”

 

“Murphy blackmailed us into voting.”

 

“I wouldn’t have been able to kill her. I know for sure Raven wouldn’t have done it either.”

 

“Echo would’ve.”

 

Bellamy feels a flare of anger rising in his chest. Yes, Echo might be the most ruthless of them all. If he asked her, she would have done it. But, even though Echo might have trouble showing emotions or opening up, she’s still a human being, and no-one should be forced to float a newborn baby.

 

“It’s done,” he grits out. “No point thinking about it.” That is a lie; the issue comes up every year, just one more thing chipping away at them.

 

“Do you think it bothers him?” Monty whispers, still rubbing at his hands not looking at the older man. “That she isn’t his? That he and Emori went to such lengths to not have any children and…”

 

“I think he doesn’t care where she came from. She is his daughter in every way that matters.”

 

Monty hums. “Sometimes I try and imagine what it would’ve been if I stayed with Harper. If…” he chuckles humorlessly. “Eight people trapped on a spaceship. And one of them is my ex.”

 

“Sucks to be you.”

 

Monty slaps his leg with no heat. “You are such an asshole.”

 

“Now honestly, what’s this all about?”

 

“The party last week. I try to think of Ivy in the now like you all do, but… But what is going to happen to her when we die, and she’s the only one left? She’ll have to watch us all die. And then she’s going to live the rest of her life here, alone.” He heaves a giant sigh. “Murphy and Emori can’t see it, but…”

 

“They do. Believe me. But certain things break you, Monty. And we need each other.”

 

Monty sighs. “You must think I’m a heartless bastard.”

 

Bellamy stares out of the window.

 

“Octavia turns thirty today. I was Ivy’s age when I held her for the first time and promised her I’d keep her safe. And then proceeded to keep her locked up for the next sixteen years. For sixteen years I felt her pain as my own. Every little smile was better than the sun coming out on the ground. Every time she cried I wanted to die. I was responsible for everything in her life.” He licks his lips. “I was eighteen when my mother tried to kill Octavia for the first time. Octavia had turned twelve that year.” He must smile remembering her at that age with her big doe-like eyes and easy laughs. “She was all tall and lanky and a bit uncoordinated because she seemed to have grown overnight, so thin you could count her ribs.” Bellamy has to swallow the lump in his throat. Eighteen years have passed since that night, and it still chills him to the bone. “I came back later than usual because I had been trying to flirt with this girl. I found my mom sitting on Octavia, pressing a pillow to her face.”

 

“God,” whispers Monty, but Bellamy doesn’t really hear him.

 

“That night my mom told me it had been a mistake. We should never have kept her.”

 

“What had happened?”

 

“Octavia had gotten her period, and my mom understood that she would never be able to have a family of her own. She tried to explain it to me. Tried to make me see reason.” He fiddles with his needle. “I stopped flirting with girls. Went straight home after shifts, cut ties with all my friends. The few I had. And decided that if Octavia couldn’t have anyone else. Neither did I. I couldn’t let her spend that much time alone with my mother because all the time I wasn’t between them was time my mother had to try again.”

 

“I am not going to kill Ivy, Bellamy.”

 

Finally, he turns his head to look at Monty, his eyes dead-serious. “When Octavia was fifteen, I stood over her bed for over an hour, contemplating the idea of killing her in her sleep.”

 

Monty chokes on his own spit.

 

“I understand what you’re saying, Monty.”

 

Monty bites the tip of his tongue, staring out of the window. Earth is beautiful today, green and blue freckled with white. She looks young and innocent.

 

“We need to get her out of here.”

 

“Raven’s working on it.”

 

***

 

Raven’s workshop is dominated by the colossal half-assembled spaceship. The mechanic has been working on it on and off since they first got here, first trying to get it ready for their return five years after Praimfaya and then… for the eventual return home.

 

Every year Raven goes through the “hope cycle” in which she’s sure she can get it to work that year and then consistently loses hope and ends up getting drunk under her workbench until Echo or Bellamy come and drag her home.

 

Whenever Raven hits rock-bottom on her “hope cycle” they all have a sort of demoralized period, in which dragging themselves out of bed seems like such a chore. The dark period spreads like wildfire through the whole crew. Bellamy isn’t sure how they managed to get themselves back on track before they had Ivy shrieking up and down the corridors pestering everyone to come play with her.

 

During the night the workshop looks eerie and dangerous: dark shadows looming everywhere, discarded tools clattering like teeth, scrap crunching beneath their boots.

 

They’ve gathered like moths around a small lamp. Echo sits on the back of a chair, playing with her gauntlets, Monty and Harper sitting on opposite sides of the table, Bellamy with Raven’s leg across his lap.

 

The door hisses open, and Emori and Murphy step into the room, matching grim expressions on their faces. They take their seats between Echo and Harper.

 

“We need to talk about Ivy.” starts Bellamy.

 

“No. We don’t,” snaps Emori.

 

“We have this conversation once a year” sighs Murphy pinching the bridge of his nose. “Do you really think we are going to change our mind?”

 

“We think you will.”

 

Murphy’s attention snaps to Echo, betrayal shining clear as day in his eyes. Bellamy thinks he remembers he used to be better at hiding his emotions. “You too?”

 

“Just listen.”

 

“There is no way for the eight of us to make the trip down” explains Raven tiredly. Bellamy rubs her shin, she manages a half smile in his direction. “We don’t have enough fuel to steer such a big craft we don’t even have enough to slow it down.”

 

“We know,” grits Emori.

 

“What we could do is prepare a smaller dropship.” Emori and Murphy share a frown. Raven continues without looking at anyone. “We could manage a dropship big enough to carry one.”

 

Raven lets the information set in.

 

“You want to send her alone.”

 

“She’s six years old.” Emori holds onto Murphy’s hand so hard her knuckles turn bone white. “I am not… NO!”

 

“It’s her best chance” Harper hasn’t said a word in this meetings since she voted in favor of floating the newborn baby.

  
“You don’t get to decide that!” growls Emori her eyes shining with hatred.

 

“She’s my daughter, too!” cries Harper.

  
“NO, SHE IS NOT!” Emori stands up so quickly her chair clatters to the floor. “YOU’RE NOT TOUCHING HER! NOT NOW, NOT EVER!”

 

With that Emori storm out of the room leaving Murphy behind. He runs his tongue over his teeth looking at his hands, tracing the red mark Emori has left around his hand. “Can it work?”

 

Bellamy sighs. “It will be as safe as we can make it for her.”

 

He nods slowly. “I am guessing you don’t pretend to send a six-year-old girl alone to the ground.”

 

“No,” says Raven. “I still need time to make sure everything works correctly. And we would need to prepare her for the ground: teach her earth skills, how to hunt, how to fight, and how to use tech, to program and build stuff. “

 

“How long?”

 

“At least a few years.” She shrugs, looking around the room.

 

Murphy swallows and when he speaks again his eyes shine with unshed tears. “Let me talk to Emori.”

 

 

***

 

Bellamy knocks on Emori and Murphy’s door. Nobody answers but after a moment the young man slips out, closing the door behind him.

 

“I’ve talked to Emori.” He looks worn, tired and extremely defeated, dark circles under his eyes, and creases in his brow. He seems to have aged ten years in the last few hours. “She…” he clears his throat. “Her parents gave her up when she was six. Couldn’t take the heat from their people anymore…”

 

“This is not the same.”

 

“We know that.”

 

“It’s her best chance.”

 

He nods again. “We know that, too.”

 

The silence is punctuated by the hum of the air filtration system, the soft vibration of the motors keeping them alive, the ever-present rumbling of machinery. Bellamy can’t remember what it was to be surrounded only by living things.

 

“Guess Echo will get to train her after all.” He rubs away at the tears rolling down his cheeks. “If anyone deserves to go to earth it’s Ivy, right?”

 

“You’re doing the right thing.”

 

“Can you…? I don’t think I can be around people right now.”

 

Bellamy nods. “I’ll tell them. Don’t worry.”

 

Murphy turns to the door, and Bellamy starts to walk away.

 

“Bellamy!” he turns. Murphy hasn’t moved, staring at his hand around the door handle.

 

“Yes?”

 

“Exodus Chart stipulates we don’t float anyone under eighteen.” Murphy’s eyes have always been too big, too open. Maybe he was never able to hide his feelings in them.

 

Bellamy nods. “I’ll tell the others.”

 

 

***

  

“Clarke? Ivy is on her way.” He looks at the earth, no matter what happens now they can’t do anything more. “This is the last time I’ll be radioing. I… We’ve sent the last angel back to earth. Take care of her for me, ok?”


	2. Ivy's landing

The whole ship shakes and shudders. A loud boom echoes all around her, rattling her teeth.

 

“I am not afraid” mumbles Ivy into her knees. “I am not afraid. I am not afraid.” Repeating the words over and over and over in her head until they become true. Just like Bellamy taught her.

 

She’s sitting with her legs pressed against her chest, her new sword pressed between her thighs and her belly, the handle digging uncomfortably under her ribs, her head between her knees, her knuckles white where she’s gripping her upper arms.

 

“I am not afraid. I am not afraid. I am not afraid.”

 

She feels the impact on her bones, the whole ship spinning around her. For a moment it feels like she’s spacewalking, then gravity pulls her down, and only the harness keeps her from slamming against the walls.

 

When everything stops spinning she’s left there, hanging from her harness, surrounded by darkness. She tries the controls on the radio, but she knows they won’t work. It’s just like the one on the Ring: you can send your voice through it, but there will never come an answer.

 

“Mom?” she whispers against the plastic. “Dad?” No one answers and the fear nagging at her heels threatens to overcome her. For a terrible moment, she’s too scared to unfasten the harness, to pull the lever that will open her dropship door.

 

Outside there’s the ground. Ivy has never been _outside_. Not without the protective hug of a space suit. She bites her bottom lip. What must it be like to be surrounded by nothing?

 

Her hands are sweaty when she pulls on the lever. It catches a bit, and then the door slides up with a hydraulic sigh.

 

The light hits her like a physical blow, and she has to turn away, covering her face with both her hands. Even then she can still see the light, blinding, and yellowish-white.

 

The air smells funny: not like metal, rust and engine oil. Not like cooked algae, not like the soft burning smell when Raven uses her welding machine. It reminds her a bit of the algae farm and the smell of the candles on her birthday cake. She feels the warm air like a caress, like her father’s warm breath ghosting over her cheek before he smacks a kiss. Like Bellamy’s breath on the back of her neck as he teaches her how to thread a needle.

 

Slowly she takes her hands away from her face to look around. Everything is too bright, it feels like someone’s stabbing her eyes, the pain throbbing in her brain. Ivy blinks and shadows appear out of the brightness: the ground, trees. The sky. It’s so strange to look at a starless sky.

 

She climbs out of the dropship, and her feet sink in the soil. When she blinks down at it, she sees how loose the ground is, how it shifts around her boot. It’s scary, like a maw about to open and devour her. Ivy takes a tentative step forward and promptly falls on her face, getting a noseful of wet dirt. The explosion of smell has her reeling.

 

Ivy isn’t sure if she wants to bury herself in that smell or get away from it as quickly as possible. Its’ rich and intense and she doesn't have the words to describe it.

 

When she finally stands up her eyes seem to have adjusted to the harsh light. She can distinguish the blurry forms of the trees a bit better now.

 

Ivy turns a full circle, tracing her fingers on the hull of her dropship. This… this warm and slightly charred chunk of metal has saved her. It’s the last piece of home that will ever protect her.

 

From the small compartment behind the seat, she fetches her backpack. The sword has fallen between the seat and a storage panel, and it takes her a moment to wiggle it out. Then she turns around and walks away.

 

Her family has told her to find her people: the angels they left behind, to deliver the small stack of letters safely tucked between her new shirts.

 

She walks to the tree line. Standing beside it is more comfortable, she can lean on it for balance because the ground is _weird_ to walk on, and the shadow protects her from the sun.

 

The noises around her are strange, too: There’s no hum of machinery, leaving a nagging feeling that there’s something _wrong_. All her life the hum of machines has meant that everything was ok. No danger. Now she hears the rustle of leaves and the creaking of branches and the twittering of birds and a thousand other tiny noises she can’t identify and feels naked, unprotected, because, where are the machines filtering the air and keeping the lights on?

 

The first person Ivy sees on earth seems to appear out of nowhere or, maybe, he made a lot of noise, and she wasn’t able to interpret it. He's old, like her father, his skin is dark, darker than the skin of anyone on the Ring. His salt and pepper hair is curly and thick. He wears a thin cotton shirt and thick pants with a lot of pockets; there's a gun strapped to his thigh, a knife hanging from his belt and a bigger gun hanging from his shoulder.  He blinks at her like he's seen an apparition. 

 

Ivy can’t stop staring. They all said she would be meeting new people down on the ground, but she imagined they would look like her people: slightly gray and familiar. Not this glowing, vibrant person that looks like someone’s pointing the world’s strongest spotlight on him.

 

“Hello,” she offers, remembering her manners. “I’m Ivy Murphy kom Skairku?”

 

The man blinks his big chocolate brown eyes and then barks a loud booming laugh that startles her. “Of course you are a Murphy!” he pats her on the back, and Ivy nearly unsheathes her sword and cuts his hand off, but he isn’t looking at her, turning instead to her dropship. “Where’s everyone?”

 

“It’s only me.”

 

The man seems to deflate, his shoulders sagging and his head falling slightly forward. “Oh.” He looks lost for a moment, then turns towards her. “Sorry. I’m Nathan Miller kom Oso Kru-de. I was patrolling when I saw your ship crashing.” He looks over at the dropship like he wants to run to it.

 

“Miller?” she asks frowning. “Nate Miller?”

 

He cocks his head, nodding, and Ivy’s left gaping. “You don’t look anything like Bellamy said you would?”

 

The hunter takes a step back. “You know Bellamy?”

 

“Yeah, that’s my uncle.”

 

“He’s alive?”

 

“Of course.”

 

The man looks up at the sky like he can see the Ring if he just tries hard enough. “What about Monty? Raven? Harper?”

 

“Yes. They are all alive.”

 

He chuckles rubbing his face with his big calloused hands. “Oh, my god. When are they coming down?”

 

Ivy feels a knot tying her throat closed. She can’t look at the man and think about home and the fact that she will never see her family again. “They can’t.”

 

“What do you mean they can’t?!”

 

She shrinks away from this stranger and his angry eyes. He’s not like Bellamy described his lieutenant at all. And if Bellamy got Miller wrong… What else won’t be like they said?

 

“Hey. It’s ok. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you.” He tries for a smile, but it’s empty and doesn’t reach his eyes. Those eyes are still angry, and Ivy isn’t sure how to make it better. He reminds her of Harper on the Bad Days, when she snaps at her and lashes out at everyone. “I guess…” he clears his throat “I’ll take you to the city.”

 

“To see Octavia? I have a letter for her.” He nods his head. “Yes. The Rover is that way.”

 

They fall into step walking more or less side by side. Miller keeps his distance. Walking on the ground gets marginally more manageable, but there are so many things to look at! The plants and the small animals crawling on them, the sun peeking through the tall trees and all those noises she doesn’t know where they come from.

 

Miller tells her they’re going to convene with the rest of his hunting kru and then he’ll take her to the city to see the angels that have been stranded on earth for over twenty years.

 

Ivy just can’t wait.

 

She has seen vids of cities, but Echo always said cities on the ground didn’t look anything like they did on the vids. Which doesn’t make much sense? Aunt Echo always has – had? - the best stories about the ground. She’s especially fond of the Raven-King that died to get his people in the bunker.

 

The rover is exactly as Raven described it: big and clunky with solar panels on top and a smell that remind her so much of her Aunt Raven; she wants to weep. On the hood lays a young woman, casually lounging on the dark metal, arms extended at her sides and the jacket open to reveal so much sun-kissed skin. When she hears them coming near, she blinks an eye open and sits lazily up.

 

Miller introduces her as Lucia, and the woman smirks at Ivy, shaking her hand with her small and calloused one. “I’m the damn best driver you’ll find in this fucking city.”

 

Lucia’s profanity reminds Ivy of her father, who never quite managed not to curse around her, but would always jokingly threaten her with washing her mouth with soap if she repeated any of it. “Well behaved people don’t speak like that” he would say, only for her mom to laugh at him. Automatically robbing him of any authority.

 

“I am from space” is all that Ivy knows to say.

 

When Ivy was little, Bellamy told her they were looking over the earth like guardian angels. Later, when she was old enough to understand what they were all training her for, she understood the truth. It sounds so much emptier saying just “I’m from space”. Ivy’d rather be an angel, protecting the beautiful planet and sending sunshine and rain for the people down there to be happy.

 

At least it gave her a sense of purpose. What purpose have her people’s lives if not to protect the earth?

 

“Cool” answers Lucia. “Marskru?”

 

She shakes her head. Nobody ever spoke of Marskru. “Skaikru.”

 

That has Lucia perking up. “Really? My mom was skaikru, too. They don’t talk much about it. I thought nobody was up there anymore. Are they coming down, too?”

 

“No.” Ivy wants to explain more. They’ve had her repeat the explanation a thousand times. But now that she has a chance to say it, the words are lodged in the back of her throat, choking her.

 

But she’s spared having to say anything else by the rest of Miller’s hunting crew stepping out of the woods, carrying dead animals, laughing, joking among themselves. The animals look like they did in the few picture books they had upon the Ring. She’s marginally aware of Miller explaining her to them and she greets them absently. It’s the dead animals that hold most of her attention. She touches the coarse head of a dead deer before they load it onto the roof of the rover.

 

Listening to them gives her vertigo, like when you’re spacewalking and the gravity boots malfunction for that fraction of a second in which you expect to drop but instead get up. They speak trig for the most part and many have accents like Echo’s or mom’s, but…. Not quite. It feels like listening to a very familiar song in the wrong key. One that’s close enough that it sounds like it should, but it’s not all the way there.

 

Ivy shakes her head, feeling a headache coming in.

 

"Do you want to ride shotgun?"

 

The girl blinks at Miller, who’s in charge of the group and he nods to the front seat and even opens the door for her. 

 

It looks slightly like the cockpit of her dropship: with a bigger window and only a few buttons and a big steering wheel. Lucy sits behind it and everyone else crams themselves on the two benches in the back. 

 

Ivy quickly looses interest in the chatter behind her, too occupied staring out the windows: The world just keeps going. They roll across a forest and fields and it doesn't end. It doesn't loop like the ring does. She keeps expecting a wall to appear out of nowhere  _containing_  the world. But it doesn't. 

 

Raven used to tell her that the ground was like space: infinite. “If the tether broke, you would float away, and keep floating forever.” Ivy was never convinced that something so vast could ever exist. She always thought there must be walls somewhere, keeping all the stars and the darkness and the planets _in_. Now she feels like, maybe, Raven was right.

 

They turn at a mind-boggling speed, the whole metal box shaking and shuddering. “Welcome to Bunker-City.” Says Lucia with a wicked grin, turning the rover onto a well-travelled dirt road that winds down to the valley in which lays the first city Ivy’s ever seen outside of the vids.

 

There’s a wall surrounding it, with big gates, open like a hungry maw. Beyond it raise the uneven teeth, lined along winding roads, made of wood and metal, rising taller than any room in the ring ever was.

 

The city is huge, noisy and, like everything else down here, vibrant. They have to slow to a crawl in order to not run over anyone. Ivy shrinks in her seat, glad for the metal walls containing her from all those strangers with strange faces and strange clothes. She pulls her feet up on the seat to press her legs against her chest, even though she hasn't asked if she can and will leave dirt all over the cushions. 

 

"You ok, spacegirl?" Lucia smiles at her, her huge dark eyes warm and her eyebrows furrowed with concern. 

 

"Peachy."

 

Lucia laughs and pats her knee. "Ah, don't worry. Safest place on earth."

 

"Have you lived here all your life?"

 

"Yep. I was born a year after the five-year quarantine. They call my generation the 'Children of the Sun'." she grimaces. 

 

"Where there many children of the sun?"  

 

"Yep,, " she pops the p cheerily. "Baby-boom. They nearly didn't have enough time to build the first hospital." she sneaks a look at her. "Many children in space."

 

"Just me."

 

"Must've sucked."

 

"Why?" 

 

Lucia shrugs. 

 

"I don't know. Growing up alone and not having anyone to play with, or someone to crush on….” She looks at her with a helpless expression. Ivy’d rather she kept her eyes on the road. “Was it just you and your parents?"

 

"My aunts and uncle. And Harper and Monty."

 

“I can’t imagine what that must’ve been like.”

 

Ivy frowns. “I wasn’t lonely.” Which she wasn’t; there was always someone there when she needed them. Even Harper, who only skulked around like a ghost, or Monty, who was harsher than anyone else.

 

Lucia drives the rover off to the side and stops in front of a huge building. The hunters jump down and start unloading their kill. Miller tells them to wait for him and the driver just kicks her seat back and put her booted feet up on the dash, grinning at her.

 

“Tell me more about space. It’s very difficult to find people that like talking about it down here.”

 

What do you want me to say? Ivy wants to ask. What _is_ there to say?

 

She looks at the people streaming around them, ignoring the rover like’s nothing out of the ordinary. They’re dressed in furs and leathers and linen, shirts like the ones Bellamy sews, cargo pants like those they keep repurposing.

 

Over their heads, beyond the roof of the rover, the sky’s a vibrant blue like she’s never seen before. “The sky is always black. Out the windows, it’s always dark. The darkness is comforting. Sometimes uncle Bell would sit with me in Jasper’s Window and point at the stars and tell me stories.” Ivy smiles down at her hands. “Sometimes, I would meet Monty there. He talks to his ghosts there, Jasper's" she adds lowly. Dad sometimes talked about Jasper, jokingly, Bellamy more serious. Harper told her how he died when the world ended. Monty didn't cry anymore. He always had the best stories about Jasper. Ivy wishes he was more than a ghost "Monty taught me the game ‘on which planet would you rather live?’ He would always say Earth, which makes it not a great game, but he liked it.”

 

Ivy takes a deep breath, blinking back the random tears rolling down her cheeks. Before Lucia can say anything Miller opens the door.

 

"Ok, Ivy Murphy. We’re going over to City Hall." he points at a big building across the busy street. “You’re going to meet with the Council, ok?”

 

"Sweet." Lucia slams her own door shut. "Come on, spacegirl!"

 

Ivy slips down to the floor. The other woman is skipping ahead, already halfway across the noisy street.

 

"Don't you have things to do?" Miller calls after her.

 

"I am not waiting to hear mom and dad gossiping to get to know everything!"

 

Ivy stays where she is for a moment longer. She needs to get across the street and into the building. But it seems so far away and there are so many different people and so little... cover. Everything is so open and wide and she isn't tethered anywhere, what if she missteps? What if gravity stops working like it sometimes did on the Ark? There's no roof anywhere, she would just float away and into space and darkness and nothingness...

 

But on the other side of the street stands a building. A building is just like the Ring, she tells herself. Walls around her. Walls are safe.

 

In her mind she can hear Echo telling her not to let her enemy know she’s scared and Bellamy telling her “just repeat thse words until they’re true.”

 

“I’m not afraid”, she mumbles under her breath, and starts walking.

 

The people around her don’t pay any attention to her, which is reassuring. What should she do if they were to notice her? She wants to run to the dropship. She needs more time, she isn’t ready for this, she can’t remember a thing she was taught and…

 

And suddenly a door is closing behind her and she’s standing in a wide room illuminated sparsely by electric bulbs, not as harsh or as white as the ring’s but manmade and familiar enough. There’s a roof and walls and cool air.

 

The room is long with rows of doors on both sides and a small desk in the middle, a bored looking man reading a book. Or maybe he’s writing in a book? A book and a pen are definitely involved in whatever he’s doing.

 

Lucia skips to him, rapping her knuckles smartly on the wood and startling him. His eyes are wide and green. Ivy has never seen so much green in her life, hadn’t known there could be green even in the eyes of people. “They’re in conference room six,” says the man pointing with his pen at a door seemingly at random and stares at Ivy while Miller heards her and Lucia towards the door.

 

The room is squareish, has tall windows lining one side and a map hanging on the wall on the opposite wall. A table arranged in a horseshoe shape occupies most of the space. The people gathered around the table are complete strangers. An elder woman with a huge tattoo across her brow and thick white hair stands up and smiles. “Welcome. My name is Nupita and I am president of the City Council.”

 

“I thought Octavia was Heda of Oso-Kru” Ivy blurts out and feels her skin heating with embarrassment.

 

Three seats down to Nupita’s left a young square-jawed woman with brown hair and tanned skin smiles. “I retired years ago.”

 

Octavia doesn’t look at all like Bellamy described: her movements are full of force, yes, but her eyes are the wrong kind of gray and her face has wrinkles around her eyes and her mouth. She has shaved half her head and the rest is gathered in only one simple braid. Her clothes are also not warrior clothes: she wears a light shirt and no war-paint to speak of. The only thing she recognizes are the tattoos sneaking up from the collar of her shirt and down her arms. Although, there are more than Bellamy said there would be.

  
“You come from the ring?” asks Octavia soft and kind.

 

“Yes. I…” Ivy shifts on her feet.

 

“Why don’t you sit down” offers Nupita. “And tell us all about your journey. We never quite managed to make contact with the ring. There’s much we want to know.”

 

Miller pushes her forward with a steady hand to her back. Ivy sits down, pulling her backpack in front of her and hugging it to her. It smells like home and she has to fight the urge to bury her face into it.

 

“My name is Ivy Murphy and I was born on the Ring eighteen years ago.” Her eyes travel from one face to the next, thinking of the people her family has talked about. Is anyone else here? Is that blonde woman Clarke; that gray-haired man Markus Kane; the angry looking woman with the tattoo around one eye and the thick scar under the other Indra; the black-skinned man on the far-left corner Jaha? “During the second Praimfaia a group of seven took off to the Ring in space with the intention of riding the death wave out and coming back. They didn’t have enough fuel to make the trip safely back. They tried.” she looks around. “They wanted me to tell you that they tried, every day for fifteen years they ran simulations and worked tirelessly to try and find a solution. It couldn’t be done.”

 

“How did you come down?” Octavia’s voice is thick with grief and so much reproach Ivy can’t really look at her.

 

“They had enough fuel and oxygen to send one one-person dropship down.”

 

“So they sent you.” It feels like a slap across the face and Ivy hugs her backpack closer to her body. Nupita sends a reproachful look in Octavia’s direction. “I am sorry.” Octavia swallows. “Are they still alive? How long do they have?”

 

“They’re alive.” She’s suddenly reminded of the letters Bellamy stuck into her backpack, and hurries to open it and pulls them out. Ivy walks on unsteady legs to Octavia and puts her letter on the tabletop in front of her. Then looks at second, feeling unsure. “This is for Clarke Griffin?” she looks at Nupita for guidance.

 

For years Bellamy has been talking to that one angel left behind. He’s always spoken about her like she’s alive, but Ivy has overheard the rest of her kru and nobody really believes the angel is still alive.

On the far end a woman with golden hair and striking blue eyes stands up. “I am Clarke.” She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. When she takes the letter from Ivy’s outstretched hand, her fingers shake. “Thank you.”

 

She sits back down and carefully opens the envelope. Ivy studies the faces of the two women: how Octavia’s crumbles as she reads and how Clarke’s turns pale and dark and then is whipped of emotion, much like Echo’s when she’s truly angry.

 

Ivy sits back on her chair, hugging her backpack to her chest and answers Nupita’s and the rest of the council’s questions to the best of her abilities. After what feels like hours the council decides they’ve had enough.

 

“You will need accommodations and a job.”

 

“She will also need a few weeks to acclimate,” says Clarke. Octavia hasn’t looked up from the letter once during the interview, but Ivy’s felt the blonde’s eyes on her like a physical weight. “Time to learn her ways around the city and understand our customs and laws.”

 

Nupita nods.

 

“She can stay with me” offers the blonde tucking the letter into her jacket. “There’s room enough in the orphanage and she can start helping out for the time being.”

 

Around the horseshoe table everyone seems to nod in approval.

 

“Very well. We will meet in a few weeks time for your registration into our city’s census. Then we will assign you some living quarters and a position in our city.” The woman offers a small smile. “Welcome to Bunker City, Ivy Murphy.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbetad 
> 
> Thanks for reading and commenting

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and commenting.


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